G. J. Meyer, Part One: Causes of the Executive Blues interviewed by Harry Goldstein	"Big corporations are simply too powerful. Technology has made them vastly rich, wealth has made them vastly powerful, and they have used their wealth and power to buy control of the political system, destroy the unions, subvert and neutralize the media." G. J. Meyer was a certified success story following the American dream — the youngest-ever vice-president of McDonnell Douglas at the age of 40. At the age of 50, he was unemployed and on the flip side of that dream, a victim of corporate downsizing. His bewildering journey from corporate success to white-collar joblessness was detailed in Executive Blues: Down and Out in Corporate America, a memoir Forbes magazine called "brilliant, original, and raging." In that book and this interview, Meyer raises hard questions about the old adage that "hard work and ability equal success" — and about economic survival during career transition. Tripod: The story you tell in Executive Blues is a familiar one at a fundamental level. You were an intelligent, sensitive person trying to derive satisfaction from your work while taking advantage of career opportunites as they presented themselves — especially at the beginning of your working life when you made the transition from newspaper reporting to public relations. But at some point, you seemed to stop heeding the advice of your inner voice. You write, "Even at that point I knew down deep that my whole life — my whole so-called career — was headed in the wrong direction and starting to pick up speed." How did your career, your working life, get so far out of control that you couldn't reverse direction? G. J. Meyer: Wow, you ask a mother of a question. After doing so many interviews I thought I had automatic answers ready for every occasion, but this is going to take some thought. If what I come up with seems inadequate but you remain interested in proceeding, don't hesitate to press for more. Let's see...how did I reach the point at which I found it impossible to reverse direction? I find myself wanting to start an answer to that question by looking back to the early '70s, when I was working for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, still regarded at that time as one of the best papers in the country. In 1971, I won a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard, which supposedly was one of the biggest honors a reporter could win. In 1973, my first book was published and, though it didn't make much money, it was well received by those who gave it any attention. For example, it won an award from the Mystery Writers of America. At that point, I guess, I regarded myself as having it made; I assumed that there would always be a place in the news business for a guy who had won a Nieman and had a book published. That was the point, I guess, at which I believed myself to have maximum control over my own future.
Deeply unhappy in PR agency work, I approached the managing editor of the Post-D about rejoining the paper and was coldly rebuffed.	My first experience of losing control is described in EB: it was the point at which, deeply unhappy in PR agency work, I approached the managing editor of the Post-D about rejoining the paper and was coldly rebuffed. Frankly, I still feel some bitterness about that. Even more frankly, I feel it sheds some light on why the P-D is no longer a nationally respected paper, and perhaps even on the decline of newspapers generally. Here I was, a guy known beyond possibility of doubt to be an excellent writer, an energetic and intelligent reporter, and a dependable and sober human being, and yet I'm turned away by the guy in charge of the paper for which only a year earlier I had been a leading contributor. Afterwards I cast a wider net, but couldn't come up with anything better than a badly-paying spot in Minneapolis. Going there would have required my wife to give up her job with no assurance of finding another one, it would have uprooted our kids, etc. etc. etc. It didn't seem worth it. Unable to get back into newspapers on reasonable terms, I felt trapped in PR and decided that I had two choices: become an embittered failure (there were lots of role models for that around) or succeed at something I didn't really enjoy very much. I opted for success, not surprisingly, and that carried me into the McDonnell Douglas vice president's job that I kept for seven years. My inner voice was ALWAYS telling me that I was in the wrong place, but I honestly could see no alternative. Even today I'm not sure what my alternatives were. Consider that I had three kids, etc. etc.
Most corporate executives, even most of the ones in high places, are in an essentially servile position.	My next major experience of loss of control came, of course, when I was toppled from my high place at McDonnell Douglas. That happened, as EB indicates, as a direct result of the retirement of the CEO who had been my sponsor. I was a big success until a new boss took over, and then, abruptly, I was no longer acceptable. To me, this shows the extent to which most people in corporate life have very little real control; they are almost all totally vulnerable to the preferences and whims of other people. It's exactly the opposite of Jefferson's ideal yeoman farmer, the model citizen who owns and works his own land and isn't subject to anybody. Most corporate executives, even most of the ones in high places, are in an essentially servile position. They cannot prove that they are effective in their jobs, and if somebody with more power wants them out, they are soon gone — regardless of their merits. I have had no real control over my career since leaving McDonnell Douglas. As EB indicates, the next job, the one at J. I. Case, ended in disaster. So did Marquette University, and so did the job I went to in Cleveland. So...what is to be concluded from all this?
Why does the job market shut down our options as firmly, quickly, and inflexibly as it does? It deprives people of the chance to change direction as they go through life.	First, I don't know how to answer the question about the point at which I no longer heeded my inner voice. For me it was less a matter of no longer hearing it than of not being able to do anything about what it had to say. Was it a tragic mistake to leave journalism for my first PR job? If so, only because I was not allowed to reverse course when I realized I had made a mistake. For me, the interesting question is why I was not allowed to reverse course. Was it an unforgivable sin for a 33-year-old guy to indulge his curiosity about the world of business? Why so? I've never understood. I was, within limits, prepared to take a substantial pay cut to get back to newspapering. Was that contemptible? Why? I always despised the corporate world, even when I seemed to be well and securely placed within it. Much as I enjoyed the travel and income and other perks, I would have given it up for a decent chance to do what I did and loved best. But that was out of the question, apparently. The more I think about this, the more I find myself focusing on the question of why the job market shuts down our options as firmly, quickly, and inflexibly as it does. It makes no sense to me. It deprives people of the chance to change direction as they go through life. Partly because I no longer have family responsibilities, partly because I think I'm just a wee bit smarter than I used to be, I now feel less trapped. I now feel more aware of the fact that I have choices, and that nothing stands between me and the making of those choices. Just now, for example, I am thinking seriously about leaving my job and trying my luck as a full-time writer. And there are other options that I'm mulling in the back of my mind as well. One more time: I feel strongly that at least part of the reason why I lost control of my working life was that companies and other employers insist upon putting us in narrow boxes and not letting us out. I feel that some of my control, my autonomy, was taken from me by a narrow-minded employment world. Tripod: I'd like to follow-up with a couple of questions that I hope will lead into a discussion of the book you're working on now. As a fiction writer who aspires to see his work in print before he dies, I'm very curious about what happened after you got your mystery novel published. Did you continue to write mysteries in your spare time, or was it a one time shot? I would think that, flushed with that first success, you would have been hungry to make it as a full-time writer then. And with the success of EB, followed by another book contract, why would you hesitate "going for it" now?
Bear in mind that I was raised by a mother who was traumatized by the Depression.	GJM: To understand my answers to your questions you need to bear in mind that I was raised by a mother who was traumatized by the Depression, and who taught me to expect the Depression to return at any moment. Throughout most of my adult life I have been very cautious, have had difficulty taking risks, etc. Thus my inability to leap into the world of the freelance author. My first book was not a novel. Rather it was the novelistic but entirely factual telling of a true story about the search for a serial killer in Memphis, Tennessee. Similar in genre (not necessarily in quality) to In Cold Blood. I researched and wrote it while working for the Post-Dispatch. It took me a year of hard work, all of it in addition to my regular reporting job. By the time it appeared in print I was in the PR business. I made so little money on it that I did not feel financially motivated to get to work on another project. Also, I think that my wife resented the free time that I devoted to wriitng — was somewhat jealous of it. I know that she deeply resented and bitterly complained about the time I spent writing Executive Blues, even though I was jobless at the time. Anyway, after the first book appeared and didn't do much, I simply put aside the idea of serious writing. I was pleased to have finished a book and found a publisher for it, and that was that. I might never have gone back to it if I hadn't lost two jobs in less than three years.
You might be interested to know that my financial insecurities didn't manifest themselves until I was in my 30s. At your age, I was quite carefree.	The success of EB led, early in 1996, to my signing a rather good contract with the Metropolitan Books division of Henry Holt for a new book on the subject of work, why it makes so many people miserable, etc. etc. This could (and perhaps should) have been my cue to leave salaried employment and "go for it," to use your term. But, because of my ingrained fear of destitution, I decided to keep working and do one more book the hard way — while also going to a daily job. It made the second half of 1996 a terrible period of all work and no play. Now my mind is pretty much made up. I turned in my manuscript on New Year's Eve, and if the publisher likes it, I will almost certainly opt for full-time book writing. Thus I'm quite anxiously awaiting some feedback on the manuscript. You might be interested to know, by the way, that the financial insecurities I've described didn't manifest themselves until I was in my 30s. At your age, I was quite carefree. Our parents put these programs in our heads, but it takes a very long time for some of them to start playing. So watch out — you may surprise yourself by turning into something unexpected one of these years. Tripod: So in the book you've just turned in to your publisher, what are some of the most common complaints about working for a corporation — and what are the most common ways people cope? GJM: The official working title for the new book is "Help Unwanted: The Crisis of Work in America." The alternatives I've offered are "Who Ain't A Slave?" (which is taken from the first chapter of Moby Dick) and "Living With Frankenstein" (because I deal at length with a book from the '50s, in which a sage named Adolf A. Berle described corporations as Frankenstein monsters and warned that, if they aren't kept in bounds, they will pose a serious threat to our future as a free society). The book does not itemize complaints about working for corporations, but it does detail those complaints by telling the stories of people who work for or have worked for corporations. The problems are familiar ones: Boredom, regimentation, bureaucracy, exploitation, denial of opportunities for creativity and self-expression, lack of autonomy, subjection to moronic bosses, the need to appear to be enthusiastic about nonsense, increasing lack of security, etc.
People are selling their lives, their humanity, out of fear.	People respond in many different ways. Huge numbers simply hunker down and endure all the indignities for the sake of the medical insurance, the hope of an eventual pension, etc. In my opinion these are the tragedies — they're selling their lives, their humanity, out of fear. Some people escape internally. I tell the story of a computer programmer who is a Buddhist, regards corporate life as inhuman and business values as insane, but survives fairly contentedly by concentrating on doing his own work as well as possible and not taking any of the rest of it seriously. I also tell the story of a man (my own cousin, actually) who spent forty years as an insurance adjuster, repeatedly refusing promotions, because his duties kept him far away from office politics and gave him a great deal of freedom of movement and freedom to set his own schedule. He was a university graduate but simply wanted nothing to do with office life, bureaucracy, the price paid for advancement, etc. He's now happily retired and says he regrets nothing. In my opinion the happiest people are the ones with the courage or spiritual freedom to do what their hearts tell them to do. One of my favorite stories is of a former marketing hotshot who got sick of the corporate life and now does carpentry and home repairs for $250 a day. He says he's never been happier, and I believe him. He told me that he genuinely loved his marketing career until his employers shifted their focus to short-term financial results and became obsessed with reducing head count. He ended his career voluntarily after deciding that he could no longer endure doing what he was increasingly required to do — fire people and destroy organizations.
I sincerely believe that if the power of the corporations is not brought into balance, we are as a culture doomed.	In a nutshell, I concluded in the course of researching and writing the book that perhaps the central problem not only with work but with our whole society today is that the big corporations are simply too powerful. Technology has made them vastly rich, wealth has made them vastly powerful, and they have used their wealth and power to buy control of the political system, destroy the unions, subvert and neutralize the media, etc. Because the core values of business, the values of the market, are inherently incompatible with the Judeo-Christian values that made our society what it is, we are experiencing a momentous cultural crisis. I sincerely believe that if the power of the corporations is not brought into balance with other things and other elements of society, we are as a culture doomed. I mean it. Be sure to read the conclusion of this interview. Don't miss Harry Goldstein's Dad and the Executive Blues. © 1997 Tripod, Inc. All rights reserved.